"Math and science make us advanced. They are what move us forward. But language and literature are what make us human. They're what make us who we are."
Freeman A Hrabowski, III
I stumbled across this quote today and it made a lot of sense to me. My entire life I've been drawn to the disciplines of science and english, and I've struggled to decide which discipline to focus on while at SLU. I've always been curious about why things are the way they are and I'm never content to accept an explanation without first looking into it myself. I am curious about scientific questions, such as why ice floats on water and how global warming is explained on an environmental scientific scale. But I am also curious about questions that I can find answered between the pages of a book, such as how social norms have changed throughout history. When it comes down to it, I guess I would prefer a good piece of literature to a scientific article, and this is because literature does "make us human." If you look back at old texts, human nature is the same. There is always good and evil, attraction between people, and a general desire for happiness and safety. Since we are as human as the authors who wrote all the books, plays, and poems of the past, it is possible to relate to their characters in some degree whether we agree with the views/actions of the characters or not. It is this ability of human beings to relate to literature that gives it timeless power and the ability to evoke powerful emotion.
2 comments:
Want to know something funny? Most of my very best creative writing students have been biology majors. There seems to be something about that particular science that opens people up to engaging with language in a really exciting way. Weird, huh?
I think nurturing a deep interest in science can be incredibly useful to a poet. We become writers because we have so many interests--a person who doesn't like anything but poetry, after all, won't have much to write poems about, will she? But a person who loves math and ecology and history and economics and theater--that person has a lot to say!
PS For cool science poetry, you might check out Alice Fulton's book Dance Script with Electric Ballerina, or Karen Anderson's forthcoming book Punish Honey, or Jonathan Skinner's excellent journal ecopoetics.
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